Well, that wasn’t so bad was it? Nine chapters of gold to help you succeed in digital and data-driven marketing. Let’s quickly recap the essence of each chapter of this guide.

Chapter 1: The rise and rise of digital marketing in a data-driven world

Chapter 1 highlighted the ever-changing nature of digital and data. Your mission will be to harness the statistics and opportunities by grounding them in business reality. As the digital world is changing every day, you will need to keep abreast of the major themes and assess the impacts on your business. Ensure you have set up your key information agents and sources of wisdom.

Chapter 2: How digital marketing fits into the marketing mix

Chapter 2 demystified digital channels and demonstrated how digital fits into the marketing mix. It also posed a big question – Should you create a customer budget?

Chapter 3: How the best of the best approach digital marketing

Chapter 3 challenged conventional business operation in silos. It then highlighted the need for a new model of collaboration, ownership and knowledge sharing.

Chapter 4: Launch with a rock-solid foundation

Chapter 4 argued for the need to throw away the old sequential marketing funnel when planning, and provided an example of how to consider customer journeys and non-sequential cycles of discovery.

Chapter 5: Listening to customers to remain relevant

Chapter 5 asserted the need to shift to a customer-centric plan as opposed to relying on the outdated business or product-centric approach. It also explained the impact this will have on your segmentation and data profiling.

Chapter 6: The new four-pillar structure for developing digital ideas

Chapter 6 introduced the development of digital ideas in four dimensions: creative, compelling story, technology and data science. It advocated favouring this over the traditional TV idea that is pushed into various digital channels like a square peg into a round hole.

Chapter 7: The never-ending campaign

Chapter 7 explained the fact that you will ‘always be on’ in digital channels. Therefore, you need to put in place a content-marketing framework for never-ending campaigning, along with escalation processes and a crisis-management plan (in case you require them).

Chapter 8: Understanding the art and science of performance data

Chapter 8 demystified the wealth of data and arrays of metrics that can be utilised for your plan. Remember that you will need to identify the most relevant, most potent ones for your planning and ongoing-optimisation purposes, rather than simply drowning in data.

Chapter 9: Educating your brand world

Chapter 9 outlined how to ensure that key stakeholders and the C-suite provide input into, and ultimately take ownership of, your digital and data plans.

Your 100-day plan

Now before we unleash you, we believe that to close the loop on this guide, we should sum it up in a straightforward 100-day plan. As we’re sure you will find, everyone is now a digital marketing expert, so you will need a structured planning process in order to develop your own plan and stay on track.

The table below serves as a framework for you to populate. The plan has been split into increments of five days (one standard working week), with the final day marking the finalisation of the specified action. Also detailed are the deliverables.

Day

Week

Action area

Deliverable

1

1

Stakeholder identification

List of team members, from C-suite through to key stakeholders in your business

5

1

World of digital

Defined view of the world of digital and gaps where you may need further research or SMEs

10

2

Resources

Identification of all internal resources and external suppliers to deliver on digital marketing activity

15

3

Data audit 1

Data audit that identifies all key touch points for capturing data

20

4

Current structures and plans

Detail of the current, top-level state of play for marketing, digital and data activity. Identification of gaps and opportunities to explore in greater detail

25

5

Current processes

Identification of current processes for delivering digital and data activity within your business

30

6

Data audit 2

Data audit identifying all data variables being utilised across the business

35

7

Internal immersion 1

Immersion of stakeholders and the C-suite in your helicopter view of the first 30 days

40

8

Process evolution

Identification of the re-engineered collaboration construct to implement

45

9

Data mining

Deep-dive into the current segmentation methodology, data variables and measures that are in place

50

10

Internal immersion 2

Subject matter presentations for C-suite and key stakeholders

55

11

Stakeholder interviews

Deep-dives with key stakeholders to identify needs, hurdles and opportunities

60

12

Collaboration planning 1

Customer-centric planning workshops

65

13

Collaboration planning 2

Customer-centric planning workshops

70

14

Digital framework

Alignment of the territory for your plan and framework

75

15

Content requirements

Identification of content marketing requirements

80

16

Resource requirements

Identification of resource requirements (internal and external)

85

17

Measurement criteria

Identification of key measurement criteria and the impact on reporting frameworks

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Anton is one of Australian's leading customer engagement consultants. With an eye for discovering greater marketing value and a love for listening to what customers are really saying about a brand. Anton has helped take global and local businesses including Microsoft, Nestlé, P&G, Gloria Jean's, Foxtel and American Express amongst others to the next level. Check out Anton's full bio here